(Offered as BLST 246 [US] /SWAG 246.)  The course introduces students to theories, methods, and analytical approaches to the study of Black girlhood.  Students will interrogate Black girlhood as a political category of identity and symbol of agency, addressing such topics as foundations of the field, utility of the categories of "girl" and "woman" and representation of Black girlhood in academic literature and popular culture.  We will explore problems pressing upon the lives of Black girls with respect to their lived experiences of work, sexuality, and ed

(Offered as BLST 146 and SOCI 204.)  This introductory course explores role power, race-relations, and identity in qualitative research.  Through readings, methodological practices, and discussion, students will consider the ways research can reproduce and disrupt the status quo.  We will examine how we walk through the world; explore the skill sets we need to conduct race-related inquiry; and reflect upon the motivations behind methodological decisions.  Additionally, we will engage key topics in qualitative research methods and experiment with varied research approache

(Offered as BLST 210 [A] HIST 210 [AF] and RELI 220.) This course explores how Christianity, Islam, and indigenous African religious beliefs shaped the formation of West African states from the transformative nineteenth-century Islamic reformist movements and mission Christianity, to the formation of modern nation-states in the twentieth century.  The course provides a broad regional West African overview, paying careful attention to how religious themes shaped the communities of the Nigerian region — a critical West African region where Christianity and Islam converged to transf